Page:Gandhi - The Wheel of fortune.djvu/136

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118
THE WHEEL OF FORTUNE

used as can be proved from authentic records. The restoration, therefore, of the spinning wheel solves the economic problem of India at a stroke. I know that you are a lover of India, that you are deeply interested in the economic, and moral up lift of my country. I know too that you have great influence. I would like to enlist it on behalf of the spinning wheel. It is the most effective force for introducing successful Co-Operative Societies. Without honest co-operation of the millions, the enterprise can never be successful, and as it is already proving a means of weaning thousands of women from a life of shame, it is as moral an instrument as it is economic.

I hope you will not allow yourself to be prejudiced by anything you might have heard about my strange views about machinery. I have nothing to say against the development of any other industry in India by means of machinery but I do say that to supply India with cloth manufactured either outside or inside through gigantic mills is an economic blunder of